Chamomile tea

[MommaHawk]

I am planning a tea garden for this coming year. My favorite hot tea is chamomile. I would like to know how much those of you who have grown it before suggest I should plant. I have raised gardens, but do not have unlimited room in them. We live on a hill in nw Ga, I have room on the hill to plant plenty of chamomile, but like most hills in nw Ga, the soil is after about an inch is red Georgia clay. Would chamomile grow in that?
If able, I also hope to grow bee balm, lemon balm, anise hyssop, lemon verbena, lemon grass, cat nip, and echinacea.

Other herbs on my wish list include oregano, thyme, several types of basil, cilantro, parsley, rosemary, sage, and lavender. I'm really excited about this herb garden.

 

[digitS']

Chamomile plants are small.

In my yard, read "small" as "tiny." I didn't give them the best location - they had very rocky soil and shade from mid-afternoon on. The chamomile bloomed and I harvested the small (read, tiny) flowers . . . all of several tablespoons . After that season, they had self-sown and came back but I replaced them 1st with petunias and then leveled that bed, built a chicken coop nearby, and planted grass seed.

So, I will say - plant more ground to the chamomile than you might think you'd need. Now, you'd benefit more from hearing from someone who gardens closer to your location .

Best of luck with ALL your tea herbs! It is definitely a good idea . You will find that there are herbs that you can both grow and especially enjoy brewing as teas. It may take a few seasons to find the ones you like best but you can have lots of fun sampling your crops !

Steve

 

[lesa]

Very fun idea! I started a tea garden last year- and really enjoyed having it. I didn't harvest any chamomile. I wanted to let it go to flower, in the hopes it would reseed itself- and it did! Looking forward to chamomile tea next year! Since it reseeded here (in zone 4) I am going to guess it would grow like crazy in your warmer climate...I predict you will love having an herb garden. Using the fresh herbs in cooking is heavenly, and having them dried for the winter months is a wonderful taste of summer. Keep us posted on your progress!

 

[MommaHawk]

Thank you both for your response. Life has been so busy that tonight is the first night that I have gotten back online to check my posts. I'm real excited about my new tea garden and I will post some pictures when we get it planted in a few months. I was wondering if the flowers were not real small. I have some tea bags with whole chamomile flowers in them and they look like they would not be much bigger than my finger tips.

 

[lesa]

Yes, the flowers are quite small. Kind of like feverfew, if you are familiar with those. If you search for tiny tea garden, on this site, you will see my tea garden from this spring. I was happy to have started it, and am looking forward to adding to it!

 

[MommaHawk]

Lesa, I saw your garden when I was researching them several weeks ago and I thing it is great. Please post some more pictures of it this year as it fills out. I'd love to see how it is going.

 

[Gnome_Czech]

I'm a bit green with envy over the yard my 4H project leader has - 2.5 acres and lots of wild chamomile on it!! I just bought a bunch of seeds so I will see what I can do to get my tea garden going.

I noticed a wild one in the dirt near my dragon fruit, but the slimers got to it and it it down to the ground.